“It’s not how much the Games are costing,” explained Mayor Ken
Melamed, after pausing to consider the question. “It’s about leveraging an
opportunity.”

But even the mayor was hard pressed this week not to
acknowledge the connection between possible rising property taxes and the
looming spectre of hosting the largest event in Whistler’s history. There’s no
denying that the municipality is heading into the second year of one of the
busiest capital spending programs the resort has ever seen and that taking
advantages of all those Olympic opportunities and readying the resort for the
Games is all costing money.

“I think there’s a connection,” admitted the mayor. “I think
it’d be hard to argue that there wasn’t.”

This, despite repeated promises that the Games would not cost
Whistler taxpayers money. But was that the promise?

The mayor was quick to stress that the council of the day, of
which he was a part, never made a promise not to raise taxes to pay for the
Games. Rather, in its guiding principles council said it would ensure the
financial exposure of the Resort Municipality of Whistler is limited and that
it would operate the Games within a balanced budget.

“I think we knew when we went into it that there would be
Olympic costs,” said Melamed. “What we wanted to reassure the community was
that we would try and be as fiscally responsible as we could given the
commitment to host the Games. Remember — this was a community decision. The
community told council ‘yes we want to do this.’ Council said ‘we’re going to
do it and promise to manage the costs’, remembering that nobody in Canada will
forget anytime soon — for a couple of generations — what happened in Montreal.”